a particular manner of representing figures on copper, so as to form prints in imitation of painting in Indian ink.

The manner of making mezzotintos is very different from all other kinds of engraving and etching; since, instead of forming the figures with lines and scratches made with the point of a graver, or by means of aquafortis, they are wholly formed by scraping and burnishing. Mezzotintos are made in the following manner: Take a well-polished copperplate, and beginning at the corner, rake or furrow the surface all over with a knife or instrument made for the purpose, first one way, and then the other, till the whole is of a regular roughness, without the least smooth part to be seen; in which state, if a paper was to be worked off from it at the copper-plate press, it would be all over black. When this is done, the plate is rubbed over with charcoal, black chalk, or black lead, and then the design is drawn with white chalk; after which the out-lines are traced out, and the plate finished by scraping off the roughnesses, so as to leave the figure on the plate. The outlines and deepest shades are not scraped at all; the next shades are scraped but little, the next more; and so on, till the shades gradually falling off, leave the paper white, in which places the plate is neatly burnished.

By an artful disposition of the shades and different parts of a figure on different plates, mezzotintos have been printed in colours, so as nearly to resemble very beautiful paintings.